18 May 2012

Get the kids away from the play stations!

17/08/2011 9:52:00 a.m.

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The Wellington Indoor Community Sports Centre is ready for action. Photo: Neil Price, Wellington City Council.

The Wellington Indoor Community Sports Centre is ready for action. Photo: Neil Price, Wellington City Council.

IT’S time to dust off the trainers and bust out the gym shorts. The Wellington Indoor Community Sports Centre in Cobham Park, Kilbirnie, is ready to open after 18 months of construction, but ICSC manager Craig Hutchings wants to clarify a widespread misconception regarding its proposed usage. The sports centre, which cost $50 million on top of its land value of $18 million, is primarily to cater for community participation-based activities such as social and junior sports as opposed to being an event based facility.
“Some people are calling it a stadium already. That’s not what it is for. The Council’s aim is to get the community active.”
Wellington Basketball Association is a key stakeholder and will be housed in the new ICSC. Wellington Netball and Capital Football will also use the new facilities along with volleyball, korfball and floorball clubs. Growing popularity of these sports accentuated Wellington’s need for more indoor sports capacity, which the 11,000 square metre resource will provide.
“They are not widely in people’s awareness,” says Hutchings of the new-fangled korfball and floorball, little-known sports which are rapidly gathering players and supporters.
“This will help grassroot sport grow a participation base.”
Professional teams such as the Wellington Saints basketball team might use the facility for training but not games. These will continue to take place at the TSB Bank Arena or Porirua’s Te Rauparaha Arena, as the ICSC only seats 2,000 spectators and is “not set up” for hosting games, says Saints general manager Tara Hakiwai.
“The centre is the perfect facility for the National Secondary Schools Basketball tournament finals. In the past those games have been held outside Wellington which means kids have had to pay transport and accommodation costs,” says Hutchings.
The council’s Jim Coard is happy to describe the 12-court facility as world class. He believes it will contribute towards Wellington youth keeping active by providing them with first-rate playing and training facilities for a variety of indoor sports.
About 40 schools are located close to Kilbirnie and as many do not have their own sporting facilities, students will use the centre for sports development and physical activity and education programmes.
City councillor Andy Foster questioned the centre’s Cobham Park location due to traffic and transport issues. He suggested it be built above the Westpac Trust stadium concourse but there was the potential for conflict with stadium events. He supports the centre’s opening but believes it would have further contributed to the city’s vitality in a more central location.
“The decision has been made and hopefully it works as well as it can.”
The Indoor Community Sports Centre opening will be held on August 27. Celebrations will include a public ceremony and community open day from 10am. Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown will cut the red ceremonial ribbon before a day of entertainment including a celebrity basketball match.
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Cover Story

Best of Wellington 2011

Briefs

  • A question of nutrition

    Controversial Washington-based nutritionist Sally Fallon-Morell is to speak in Wellington on March 29.
    Fallon-Morell is the co-founder of the American food lobby group the Weston A. Price Foundation and the author of Nourishing Traditions. She advocates for the consumption of nutritionally dense foods such as lacto-fermented vegetables, stocks and broths, and whole raw dairy products.
    Fallon-Morell will speak at St Patrick’s College Hall on March 29.

  • Relay for cancer

    Organisers say Sunday’s Relay for Life is full to capacity with hundreds of Wellingtonians registered for the event.
    A total of 88 teams, made up of 10 to 500 members, plan to take part with a further 25 teams on the waiting list.
    The 24 hour relay, the Cancer Society’s biggest fundraising event of the year, takes place at Frank Kitts Park from 4pm on March 31.

  • Osteoarthritis awareness

    Arthritis New Zealand has launched a nationwide campaign raise awareness about osteoarthritis. 
    Arthritis is New Zealand’s leading cause of disability, affecting 305,000 adults, and osteoarthritis is its most common form.
    The campaign features television commercials and an interactive website.


  • Wild walk

    Take part in the Big Walk at Zealandia on March 31.
    Walkers can choose a two, five or 10 kilometre walk catering to all fitness levels.
    Money raised will go to the Foundation for Youth Development.

  • School pool

    The opening of the new Khandallah School pool this week means hundreds of children will be able to continue their swimming lessons.
    The pool was the first to receive a grant from Wellington City Council’s Schools Pools Partnership Fund, a fund set up in 2010 to help schools improve their pool facilities.
    Grants from the fund have also been made for pools at Wellington East Girls’ College, Barhampore School and Tawa School.

  • Easter bikers

    Motorcyclists are invited to get on their bikes and collect Easter eggs for families support from the Wellington City Mission.
    The charity run on April 1 is organised by motorcycle lobby group BONZ.
    Eggs can be donated at Red Baron Motorcylces in Alicetown. The registration fee for bikers is $10, plus the cost of Easter eggs.

  • Crafty

    Made on Marion opens on the site of the former Golding Handicrafts site in Marion St, from April 1.  They will continue to supply craft materials.

  • Ze upgrade

    Taranaki Street fuel users will notice that the Z Energy’s former Shell Service Station is closed.  Z are doing a “total revamp”.
    The job will take four weeks.

  • Newlands Moves

    Developer Ayal Aharoni has agreed to build only 90 instead of 220 houses on his six and a half hectares above Ngauranga Gorge in Newlands.  Only low density occupation will be allowed on the remaining 8.4 hectares.


  • Baring Head

    There's a new  draft plan out for what should happen at Baring Head.  It outlines how the Greater Wellington Regional council would like to manage the newest addition to its regional parks network. Grazing animals will go, motorised vehicles will be prohibited, predators will be controlled, and the lighthouse will be preserved. Submissions are invited.


  • It’s a wonder

    A new childcare centre in Newtown says it is dedicated to helping kids grow up healthy in mind, body and spirit. Little Wonders Childcare on Rintoul Street is an independent early childhood education and learning centre, the sixth centre to be opened by its Auckland-based owner. It caters to 100 children aged between three months and five years old and has been open for a little more than seven weeks.

  • Festival treats

    CHILDREN have not been forgotten by organisers of the New Zealand International Arts Festival.
    For a perfect first theatrical experience White tells the story of friends Cotton and Winkle who live in a world where there is no colour and everything is startlingly white. That is until a brightly coloured egg tumbles out of the sky and changes their world for ever.
    White plays at Capital E from March 7-11.
    The tale of Peter and the World also promises to be a magical night for all ages. Sergei Prokofiev’s classic children’s tale is told through film and live music from the NZ Symphony Orchestra at the Michael Fowler Centre on March 9.
    March 11 is Young Writers and Readers Day and readings from children’s writers and illustrators Lynley Dodd and Gavin Bishop.

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